Hacker News: tynan

New comment by tynan in "How I Choose What to Work On (2023)"

tynan — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:17:50 +0000

I'm the author. I'm married but don't have kids. I distinctly remember when I first visited Hilo, Hawaii when I was 15, thinking that if I had to be homeless there, it would be better than having a job I hated. For years I lived in a tiny 21' RV behind a gas station in SF.

Now I'm married, and I would certainly sacrifice a lot for my wife. I don't have kids, but I would also sacrifice a lot for my nieces and nephews.

What I should have said is that I'd rather live a very materially basic life than do work I hate. If I couldn't afford clothing/food/housing/etc. I'd do whatever I needed to.

New comment by tynan in "How I Choose What to Work On (2023)"

tynan — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:07:34 +0000

Haha I doubt it too.

New comment by tynan in "How I Choose What to Work On (2023)"

tynan — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:07:22 +0000

Happy to hear it! --Tynan

New comment by tynan in "How I Choose What to Work On (2023)"

tynan — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 17:07:00 +0000

Tynan here. I've bought small apartments with groups of friends in Hilo, Budapest, Tokyo, and bought a small island in Canada. My share of all four of those cost under $50k. So most of the time when I travel I go to places I have my own place. I don't do a ton of touristy stuff, because I've been to all these places dozens of times, but instead more or less live a life like a local there, which doesn't cost more than my life in Vegas.

I still have to buy flights, but there are a lot of well known methods (points, etc) to get really cheap flights.

Even back when I really had no money, a buddy and I just rented cheap apartments around the world for a year and gave up our places at home. It cost very little.

Building a custom e-ink and NFC based labeling system

tynan — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 21:58:00 +0000

Article URL: https://tynan.com/tealabels/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43295206

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by tynan in "Trump wins presidency for second time"

tynan — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 15:08:20 +0000

We currently have a lot of tariffs. Should we remove all of them, some of them, or do we have exactly the correct amount?

New comment by tynan in "Virtual Pinhead"

tynan — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 04:41:37 +0000

PinballFX is video game pinball. VisualPinballX is more of a simulation. Of course the simulation isn't 100% accurate, but it's shockingly close. Medieval Madness was one of my favorite games on virtual (I had never played the physical version), and the first time I played the physical one I got two replays in a row. It translates pretty well.

I built a virtual pinball, which led to me buying 4 physical pinballs, and now I'm in the final stages of remaking my virtual pinball to add to my little arcade. With all of the exciters, solenoids, and LED lights, it feels surprisingly physical. You can even nudge.

It's a tradeoff of realism for variety, and I think there are valid arguments for either.

New comment by tynan in "Virtual Pinhead"

tynan — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 22:51:30 +0000

Haha-- I've had the exact same idea with all of the extra hardware I have sitting around too. GMTA

New comment by tynan in "Virtual Pinhead"

tynan — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 21:28:51 +0000

I'm the author of the post that you mentioned inspired you last year. It was fun to read your post as I tinker on my 2nd virtual pinball cabinet. I now have 4 real pinballs and built new walls to make a secret pinball arcade in my house... it really is a rabbithole

New comment by tynan in "Ask HN: What happened to hackerspaces?"

tynan — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 07:46:47 +0000

Vegas, a city with very high quality of life and reasonable real estate prices, has SYN Shop for $50/mo

https://synshop.org/

New comment by tynan in "Kagi finally let me lay Google Search to rest"

tynan — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 01:50:15 +0000

Just to chime in and add another datapoint, I switched to Kagi and expected that I'd eventually go back to Google (like I had when I switched to DDG), but the results are just as good or better and I'm happy to pay to not have ads or tracking.

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:14:05 +0000

Very anecdotal (just the experience of me and my friends, who have a total of 5 new sterns between us), but I think there's not much maintenance. These things are made for commercial settings so they're pretty durable. One of mine had a bolt fall out of the auto plunger, which I screwed back in. When it fell out again I added some loc-tite and it has stayed in since. No other issues. If you're into DIY at all, they are VERY easy to access for repair. The playfields flip up, they come with technical manuals, many parts are generic, and all parts are pretty easy to find.

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:09:05 +0000

Cool! Love the game, by the way. Feels like it's a bit underrated because of the golf theme, but it's one of my favorite multiballs and I like the progression of the scorecard.

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 18:03:55 +0000

Very cool! Thank you for letting me know!

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 10:24:00 +0000

Author of the post here. My first game (No Good Gofers) is relatively simple, but I still haven't gotten to all of the advanced modes on it. More than that, just learning different passes and catches is interesting and challenging enough that I think any halfway decent game would give you a lot of enjoyment. If you get a very complicated Keith Elwin game like Godzilla or Avengers Infinity Quest, you'll probably never get sick of it.

Also worth noting is that games tend to hold their values really well, so you see most people trading/buying/selling regularly. The guy who sold me my Avengers only did it because he had a Godzilla Premium on order and had room for one game.

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 10:20:33 +0000

Author here... the best guide is http://mjrnet.org/pinscape/BuildGuideV2/BuildGuide.php

The thing that matters most is having a 120hz screen, and I'd argue that 4k/OLED are equally important. When I first laid screens out on my floor to test I almost decided not to build one because the monitor was a 60hz IPS and it just didn't look that great. LG C1 48" is a little big but is what I started with. Excellent picture quality. LG C2 42" or KTC 42 seem to be the best. Don't worry too much about the bells and whistles, fancy buttons, etc.

New comment by tynan in "Getting into Pinball"

tynan — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 10:18:10 +0000

Author here... minimalist might be a little bit outdated. A friend wrote the about for me because he was annoyed that I didn't have one. FWIW I do still only wear one set of clothes every day and travel for weeks with what most consider to be a very small backpack.

New comment by tynan in "Ask HN: Could you share your personal blog here?"

tynan — Tue, 04 Jul 2023 18:10:36 +0000

https://tynan.com

Been writing for almost 20 years, at least monthly, but for most of that time weekly.

New comment by tynan in "Ask HN: MacBooks seems to be the only viable option these days"

tynan — Mon, 18 Apr 2022 21:13:37 +0000

X1 Carbon feels a lot nicer to me than a Macbook. It's also lighter than a Macbook air and has a bigger screen and better keyboard.

Macbooks are better than about 95% of PC laptops, but that's because Macbooks are only in the lower/mid upper end of laptops. PC laptops range from absolute garbage to being significantly better than Macbooks.

When people complain about how terrible PC laptops are, it's very rare that they've spent a meaningful amount of time (read: enough to get used to the trackpoint) with a high end PC laptop.

New comment by tynan in "Japanese Woodblock Print Search"

tynan — Wed, 31 Oct 2018 20:59:33 +0000

Artelino.com is one of the best sites to purchase at (recommended to me by the creator of ukiyo-e.org).

I got into woodblock prints just because I happened to see a great exhibit at the Honolulu Museum of Art. Before that they all sort of looked the same to me.

Browse the artelino listings and find stuff that you like. Values for woodblocks tend to not really go up or down, so buy them just because you like looking at them.